These guys are really clever. Yay John Stewart!
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
What the...where, huh...how?
It turns out you can't always just sit there doing nothing and come off looking like a genius, or a hero. This disappointing revelation came to me yesterday when I was standing next to a newspaper stand and a man walked up and started making that "hand-in-the-armpit-fart-noise" that was so popular with the boys in elementary school. Yay, elementary school boys. But this guy was a full grown man, wearing a suit, no less. He was a bit disheveled, the tie was undone and hanging loose, and the coat a was bit rumpled, but not overly so. He didn't have the obvious look of a New York Crazy Person, and he didn't smell like a garbage bin doing double duty as a human waste receptacle. In short, he appeared to be a normal, everyday, slightly haggard business man.
So there I was, just standing by the newspaper stand minding my own business, watching the flow of the city and wondering where the hell everyone was going in such a dang-blasted hurry when this guy walks up, unbuttons one button of his Oxford shirt, sticks the hand up into the armpit and commences with the fart noise makee makee. Fart, fart, farting away and just staring at me. At ME! Like I was supposed to be critiquing his performance or something. Or maybe like I was his boss who'd just turned him down for a raise, or that assignment in Acapulco. At any rate he farted away at me for a little while and then buttoned up his shirt and proceeded on down the street like nothing ever happened. And there I'm left standing with a look on my face like I've just woken up and found Gary Busey in my kitchen smoking opium and making a quiche. Everyone else about who was unfortunate enough to have witnessed the incident, but fortunate enough not to have been the recipient of the performance was staring at me, waiting to see what I would do next. Now, after almost 5 years of living in New York, I've become conditioned to the absurd, random things you see happening in the streets and, normally, I would have just taken such a thing in stride and pressed on with my day, business as usual. This time, well, I just couldn't do it. He must have caught me in a vulnerable moment because my absurdity filters totally failed to catch the incident before it made it's way into my brain and the words "If it weren't for my horse..." started echoing faintly around inside my head.
So what did I do? Nothing. But it wasn't a "cool" nothing where you just ignore the weird thing, or make like it happens all the time, it was a total dundering nothing, where you look a bit like a frustrated and confused George Castanza, stammering sounds that aren't words and pointing in all directions at once, wondering how Gary got into the apartment in the first place, and would he let you have any of that scrumptious looking quiche. No ladies and gentelmen, I did not get to look like a hero that day, I got to look like a genuine, first class idiot. And I wasn't even the one making fart noises.
So there I was, just standing by the newspaper stand minding my own business, watching the flow of the city and wondering where the hell everyone was going in such a dang-blasted hurry when this guy walks up, unbuttons one button of his Oxford shirt, sticks the hand up into the armpit and commences with the fart noise makee makee. Fart, fart, farting away and just staring at me. At ME! Like I was supposed to be critiquing his performance or something. Or maybe like I was his boss who'd just turned him down for a raise, or that assignment in Acapulco. At any rate he farted away at me for a little while and then buttoned up his shirt and proceeded on down the street like nothing ever happened. And there I'm left standing with a look on my face like I've just woken up and found Gary Busey in my kitchen smoking opium and making a quiche. Everyone else about who was unfortunate enough to have witnessed the incident, but fortunate enough not to have been the recipient of the performance was staring at me, waiting to see what I would do next. Now, after almost 5 years of living in New York, I've become conditioned to the absurd, random things you see happening in the streets and, normally, I would have just taken such a thing in stride and pressed on with my day, business as usual. This time, well, I just couldn't do it. He must have caught me in a vulnerable moment because my absurdity filters totally failed to catch the incident before it made it's way into my brain and the words "If it weren't for my horse..." started echoing faintly around inside my head.
So what did I do? Nothing. But it wasn't a "cool" nothing where you just ignore the weird thing, or make like it happens all the time, it was a total dundering nothing, where you look a bit like a frustrated and confused George Castanza, stammering sounds that aren't words and pointing in all directions at once, wondering how Gary got into the apartment in the first place, and would he let you have any of that scrumptious looking quiche. No ladies and gentelmen, I did not get to look like a hero that day, I got to look like a genuine, first class idiot. And I wasn't even the one making fart noises.
Saturday, January 06, 2007
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